


To Perceive And To See

by neverminetohold



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Slash, Sparkbond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-20
Updated: 2012-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-03 23:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverminetohold/pseuds/neverminetohold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perceptor doesn't like this feeling, when all turns to gray. But some time later, a new arrival comes down to Earth and Bee has to wonder: Who is that stranger and what is he doing to Perceptor! Or would that be WITH him?!</p>
<p>Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to HASBRO</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

The irrational pressure of stillness around and within him was a cacophony – it felt wrong. Buzzing and sizzling, it filled his audio receptors with its ugly intensity.

Even worse: it alone was vivid.

Perceptor felt the UV-rays of Earth's sun heating his plating. But the sensation scratched only at the surface and was not able to make its way deeper, where he felt chilled.

Everything he laid optics on lacked color. His processor relentlessly pulled up data for reference, out of control and unbidden. It turned the flight formation of the majestic birds, passing overhead from the cities direction, into a flood of specifics on branta canadensis.

It turned swaying blades of grass, barely reaching up to his ankles, into lolium perenne and a list of the plants chemical components - as if only a Latin name could lend an object or creature true value. Or Science-Cybertronian, for that matter.

It was irritating. Perceptor wished, for once, to forget about being a scientist. The problem he faced was rooted in the emotional and, as such, bordered on the illogical. It could only, to an insufficient degree, be analyzed under a microscope...

Right now, all that the core programming of his function did was drain the simple beauty from this idyllic scenery, which stretched out all around him. All seemed dull and gray, filtered through zeroes and ones of data feedback streams, to be clinically recorded.

To observe and perceive, ironically enough, mustn't necessarily mean to see it, or touch and experience it.

With _him_ away, it was always like this for Perceptor. An invisible wall - between him and everything which made other Cybertronians feel _alive_ \- separated him.

Perceptor preferred not to think about all those vorns before their encounter. Only now, knowing the difference, he could appreciate how lonely he had been.

Perceptor felt miserable. Enough so that he did not mind acting like a youngling with separation issues... No. He could not even make light of it in his own helm.

: I miss you. :

That his call was answered took him by surprise, but it was a fact: A faint tendril of calm and reassurance – warmth – wound itself around Perceptor's spark. His mate stretched himself thin over their connection to reach him.

Of course, it may have been only his imagination, but flowers and grass suddenly seemed more colorful and the twitter of nearby birds finally reached his audios. It sounded cheerful.

The sun shone like a disc of pure gold in a blue, blue sky... It was quite the beautiful cycle here on Earth.

And Perceptor was now able to see it.

End


	2. Chapter 2

Bumblebee stood and _stared_.

It was not often that Unit 4 came down from the moon base and brought someone from Cybertron with it. This particular new arrival he had never seen before.

Of course, that alone would normally have been reason for a friendly greeting... But the flaming red, bulky frontliner with armor plates as thick as their resident weapons specialist's... Well, he _loomed_ over Perceptor in a possibly threatening way.

Bee just had to wonder why the introverted scientist was not quaking in his pedes right then and there.

That the newcomer pulled something from subspace and shoved it right under Perceptor's olfactory sensor did nothing to reassure the watchful minibot.

Whatever it was sparked like a rainbow in the rec-room's artificial light and – Wait! Was that item a... rock? Bumblebee's faceplate did an impressive job to convey the question mark his processor came up with at the sight – he would know because he could feel the stretch and pull.

Carefully, he edged closer, taking his energon cube with him. It was easy to pretend that he only wanted to watch Prowl pounding Jazz into the ground – on the 3D chess board. Of course, with the change of position, Bumblebee noted the twins and Bluestreak doing the same thing.

Group eavesdropping. He had the vague notion that he should feel ashamed.

"Thank you, Firecracker," he heard Perceptor saying, as the mech took the baseball sized piece of ragged-edged rock with both servos. He turned it around, studying it intently with that typical look that Bee had dubbed 'single-minded-scientist' - mode. When it was turned on you, you felt like a bug under a microscope – it had the dissecting qualities of a scalpel. That wasn't nice when your designation was _Bumblebee_.

Taking a sip of energon and deciding to take his self-appointed guard duty more seriously, Bee duly noted that the stranger's designation was Firecracker. That sounded as if the mech had a thing for big, booming cannons – he ought to hit it off with Ironhide.

"It is a rare form of crystallized and stable energon. These golden specks indicate that it formed near Cybertron's core, approxi-"

"Perceptor," interrupted Firecracker. Against Bee's expectations, his tone was decidedly _not_ gruff or a deep bass, but rather a cultivated baritone which clashed with his frame design and function like Pit.

Hearing it, Bluestreak's doorwings pulled up in surprise. Not really subtle, but the conversing mechs by the energon converter seemed too stuck in their bubble of obliviousness to notice.

Perceptor hesitated for a moment, studying both the frontliner and the crystal like one would a puzzle. The confusion drained away, though, and Bumblebee noted the curious softening around the scientist's optics.

"Oh! It is... beautiful to look at. Thank you."

O-K-A-Y: Did the mech _blush_ just now? And was that a shy smile?

Firecracker looked down on Perceptor with a quiet chuckle full of fond exasperation. To Bee, he seemed long-suffering.

"We really have to work on that. Took you a whole breem longer to notice than last time."

And then, without preamble, the bulky red-plated Autobot leaned down to _kiss_ Perceptor in front of the whole buzzing rec-room!

In that moment, Jazz toppled his own king with a touch, conceding defeat to Prowl – and Bluestreak spewed his mouthful of energon straight into Sunstreaker's faceplate as their introverted scientist moaned softly and pulled Firecracker closer.

It all went downhill from there.

And when Bumblebee finally had a chance to look again, both soldier and scientist had merrily sneaked away from the commotion.

End


	3. Chapter 3

Perceptor found himself surrounded and the focal point of a whole table of fellow Autobots. He shifted uncomfortably on his chair with a scrape of metal - he should have expected this sudden interest.

Jazz grinned good-naturedly and pushed a cube of Wheeljack's famous high-grade his way. Perceptor took it and nipped a swallow straight away, grateful that Firecracker was not present. All the curious optics burned on his plating, as if magnified.

"Come on, out with it!" encouraged Bumblebee, with Bluestreak beaming over his shoulder armor.

Resigned to his inevitable fate, Perceptor began. "I first met him in Iacon. Some former colleagues of mine had managed to convince me that I needed a break. So they invited me to the 'Lithium Flower', a new club. I had too much high-grade and ended up at a strangers table," he paused to take another sip. "I talked about my research."

Bumblebee pulled a face at hearing that. But Perceptor remembered fondly the endless string of equations, a locked secret to him, back then. And the excitement, which not many of the 'bots here would be able to understand, as he faced such an intellectual challenge.

"My chosen subject was the modification of ultra-"

"Please, Percy – don't get into details!" moaned an already overcharged Sideswipe, with a desperate optic roll.

"Agreed," Bee chimed in. He raised his servos in a placating manner. "No offense, Perceptor, but let's just say it's insanely complicated and likely too much to get in the tank of a non-scientist, okay?"

Perceptor vented a quiet sigh only Prowl may have noticed – and Jazz, of course. He had long since given up on trying to make them understand or share in his scientific enthusiasm. He knew by now that they did not mean to hurt his feelings, but to come to that realization had taken some vorns in which he had felt... underappreciated.

"That is fine by me. So... I showed that stranger my vid-feed from an earlier conducted experiment, which basically made certain radiation visible through coloration..." Perceptor trailed off without realizing it.

He could still see it vividly: the projection, a burst of colors. And he remembered that feeling, even clouded as it had been back then due to the warm fuzz of overcharge, intent optics. Never leaving _him_ out of their sight.

"I feel the urge to strangle you," Sunstreaker informed him pleasantly, rapping his knuckles impatiently on the tabletop.

"Ahem. Firecracker looked at the hologram and said 'It's beautiful' – I answered that his observation lacked any kind of scientific value."

Ironhide snorted into his half empty cube, which earned him an elbow in his rib-strut from Ratchet. Prowl's stern gaze was all it took to silence the snickering twins.

"And?" Jazz prompted, helm tilted in curiosity, his visor gleaming a bright blue.

"Firecracker just laughed, as if I had made a... a _joke_ ," Perceptor had provoked another bout of snickers because he had tasted the last word on his glossa with open wonder. "There is no method to deduce why or how, but that moment was the beginning of our relationship and engraved itself into my memory core with unusual vividness."

"The translation for more romantic 'bots might be 'love on first optic-catch'," supplied Hound helpfully.

"Oh, I would say it was," confirmed a baritone.

Arms circled around Perceptor's frame, in what must have looked like a dangerously crushing embrace; it was not. Firecracker was always aware of the vast differences in their respective builds and thus careful.

Perceptor relaxed into the familiar shape behind him, feeling the rush of spark energy from his bondmate answered by his own and how their EM fields mingled without effort. It was a safe haven he cherished.

The conversation picked up soon enough, but he spared it not a fraction of his processing capacity. He was satisfied with his knowledge, for once, because part of it was knowing that Firecracker was right there at his side.

End


End file.
